I argue for a different interpretation entirely—that the bearers of any of the variants of the Andronovo culture and the Bactrian Margiana complex ma… - C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky (ed.). Archaeological thought in America. 357 pages, 35 illustrations. 1989. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0-521-35452-8 hardback £35 & $39.50

Arkhaim has become a center for followers of the occult and Russian supernationalists, a theater of, and for, the absurd and dangerous. It is argued that it was constructed to reproduce a model of the universe; that it was built by King Yima, as described in the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians (Medvedev 1999); that it was a temple observatory; that it was the birthplace of Zoroaster, who is buried at Sintashta; that it is the homeland of the ancient Aryans; and that it is the earliest Slavic state. The swastika, which appears on pottery from Arkhaim, is proclaimed a symbol of Aryanism. Visitors come to pray, tap energy from outer space, worship fire, be cured, dance, meditate, and sing.

Increasingly, however, the concept of a single homogeneous culture covering 3 million square kilometers and enduring for over a millennium has become untenable.

Furthermore, archaeology offers virtually no evidence for Bactrian Margiana influence on the steppe and only scant evidence for an Andronovo presence in the Bactrian Margiana area. There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that the two had a common ancestor. There is simply no compelling archaeological evidence for (or, for that matter, against) the notion that either is Indo-Iranian.